clew

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A ball of yarn or thread.
• noun Greek Mythology The ball of thread used by Theseus to find his way out of the labyrinth.
• noun The cords by which a hammock is suspended.
• noun One of the two lower corners of a square sail.
• noun The lower aft corner of a fore-and-aft sail.
• noun A metal loop attached to the lower corner of a sail.
• transitive verb To roll or coil into a ball.
• transitive verb Nautical To raise the lower corners of (a square sail) by means of clew lines. Used with up.

from The Century Dictionary.

• See clue.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb obsolete To direct; to guide, as by a thread.
• transitive verb (Naut.) To move of draw (a sail or yard) by means of the clew garnets, clew lines, etc.; esp. to draw up the clews of a square sail to the yard.
• transitive verb (Naut.) to force (a yard) down by hauling on the clew lines.
• transitive verb (Naut.) to draw (a sail) up to the yard, as for furling.
• noun A ball of thread, yarn, or cord; also, The thread itself.
• noun That which guides or directs one in anything of a doubtful or intricate nature; that which gives a hint in the solution of a mystery.
• noun A lower corner of a square sail, or the after corner of a fore-and-aft sail.
• noun A loop and thimbles at the corner of a sail.
• noun A combination of lines or nettles by which a hammock is suspended.
• noun (Naut.) one of the ropes by which the clews of the courses of square-rigged vessels are drawn up to the lower yards.
• noun (Naut.) a rope by which a clew of one of the smaller square sails, as topsail, topgallant sail, or royal, is run up to its yard.
• noun (Naut.) The block through which a clew line reeves. See Illust. of Block.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun obsolete A roughly spherical mass or body.
• noun archaic A ball of thread or yarn.
• noun Yarn or thread as used to guide one's way through a maze or labyrinth; a guide, a clue.
• noun nautical The lower corner(s) of a sail to which a sheet is attached for trimming the sail (adjusting its position relative to the wind); the metal loop or cringle in the corner of the sail, to which the sheet is attached. On a triangular sail, the clew is the trailing corner relative to the wind direction.
• noun in the plural The sheets so attached to a sail.
• noun nautical, in the plural The cords suspending a hammock.
• noun Archaic form of clue.
• verb transitive to roll into a ball
• verb nautical (transitive and intransitive) to raise the lower corner(s) of (a sail)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a ball of yarn or cord or thread
• verb roll into a ball
• noun evidence that helps to solve a problem